NEW YORK – Cam Schlittler and Jacob Misiorowski left baseball’s award voters no room for a dissenting first choice. In their first full major-league seasons, the Yankees and Brewers right-handers claimed the American League and National League Cy Young Awards unanimously, turning two rapid rises into a rare shared milestone.
Each received all 30 first-place votes and the maximum 210 points in results announced Wednesday. Only twice before had both leagues produced unanimous Cy Young winners in the same year: Denny McLain and Bob Gibson in 1968, and Justin Verlander and Sandy Alcantara in 2022.
The agreement at the top concealed very different contests underneath. Toronto’s Dylan Cease was a clear AL runner-up. In the NL, Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez edged Atlanta’s Chris Sale by a single point, a margin shaped by preferences across all five places rather than a challenge to Misiorowski’s victory.
The significance stretches beyond the clean sweeps. At 25 and 24 respectively, Schlittler and Misiorowski won in their second major-league seasons, without the long apprenticeship usually associated with an established ace. Their performances answered an immediate question for two contenders: whether young starters could carry frontline responsibility over a full season, not merely overwhelm hitters in a short debut.
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s AL results gave Cease 110 points, followed by Cleveland’s Parker Messick with 84 and Tampa Bay’s Drew Rasmussen with 72. All four, including Schlittler, appeared on every ballot. Cease collected 22 second-place votes, leaving little uncertainty about who finished immediately behind the winner.
Schlittler’s 1.95 ERA led the American League. MLB recorded it as the third-lowest qualifying season in Yankees history, behind Spud Chandler’s 1.64 in 1943 and Ron Guidry’s 1.74 in 1978. His distinction was not confined to the protection of a home crowd: a 1.16 road ERA placed him behind only Gibson and Greg Maddux among live-ball-era pitchers with at least 100 road innings.
The New York Yankees’ young starter also supplied stability when Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodón each finished below 130 innings. That context gives the award more weight than a list of dominant outings. New York needed dependable starts as well as exceptional ones, and Schlittler’s first full season supplied both.
MLB quoted Schlittler describing the moment as “surreal.” Yet his response also drew a line between an individual award and the championship Milwaukee had already secured. He said, “The job isn’t done yet.”
Misiorowski’s case began with extraordinary velocity but did not end there. Across 30 starts and 174⅔ innings, he led the majors with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts. His 0.80 WHIP, a measure of walks and hits allowed per inning, and .157 opponents’ batting average showed how rarely that power translated into baserunners for opposing lineups.
His triple-digit fastball had made him a spectacle well before award night. MLB reported a 100.6 mph average on his four-seamer and a peak of 105.5 mph. The more consequential change was sustaining effectiveness: improved strength and more consistent mechanics helped him reduce the misses that had complicated his rookie-season command.
In MLB’s account of the awards, Misiorowski identified offseason work in the weight room as a major adjustment. His description brought the season back from radar-gun readings to preparation. The fastest pitch helped define his reputation; repeatedly getting through lineups built the award-winning year.
https://x.com/Brewers/status/2120681593194823764
The BBWAA’s NL ballot breakdown makes the closest decision of the night visible. Sánchez finished with 99 points to Sale’s 98, despite receiving 17 second-place votes against Sale’s 11. Sale’s 16 third-place votes, compared with Sánchez’s six, nearly erased that advantage. Fourth- and fifth-place preferences completed the one-point separation.
That is a ranking outcome, not evidence that one pitcher nearly took the award from Misiorowski. Every voter put Milwaukee’s ace first. The published ballots establish those preferences; they do not explain each writer’s reasoning. Sánchez was runner-up for the second consecutive year, while Cease’s AL finish followed his second-place result with the White Sox in 2022.
Misiorowski became Milwaukee’s fourth Cy Young winner, joining Rollie Fingers, Pete Vuckovich and Corbin Burnes. Schlittler became the Yankees’ seventh. He also joined Guidry and Cole as Yankees pitchers elected unanimously.
Milwaukee’s first World Series championship gives Misiorowski’s award a celebratory backdrop, but it cannot be counted as part of the voting case. The BBWAA required ballots before postseason play. The performances that settled October came after the choices had already been made.
Both winners therefore reached Wednesday with the decisive work already behind them. The ballots needed no tiebreaker at the top: 30 first-place votes in one league, 30 in the other, and a one-point argument several lines below.
